[bangraman]

I seem to have a lot of problems with burn in, perhaps one of the demerits of having so many headphones. This time around, it's the HD600 I bought some time ago. I liked the sound, but failed to see the point of the headphones what the with W100, and sort of stuck it away in it's box and didn't use it. I now have a tube amp specifically set up for high-impedance phones and I'm listening to this a lot at the moment. The problem is that I'm not noticing a huge diffeernce in the sound between the headphone out of one of my kit amps and the tube amp. Apparently the (second-user) amp needs burning in as well as it hasn't been used a lot either. To discount the HD600 from the equation, how long does it need to be played for it to reach 'normal' performance?

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Oh boy am I gonna open a can of worms here. First of all I OWN a pair of these wonderful cans. My personal opinion is a good 100 hours. If tey already have some use the best thing to break them in is to get the driver moving as much as possible. That means bass notes, and the deeper the better. Get something like Bass Mekanik's Quad Maximus and set it to repeat play for about two days at whatever volume you feel like doing without overdriving the cans!!

Every time you drop down to half the frequency you quadruple the driver's movement necessary to reproduce that new note, so bass is my opinion of where to go.

 

[wallijonn]

what's the source? if they both sound the same, it makes me wonder. and what music are you pushing through them? is the diy a class A? got acoustic guitars and vocals? how about something with sizzling high end. maybe some techno.

how do you compare the senn600's to the w100? i would think that there's a world of difference. maybe your ears are now tuned to the w100's?

 

[ablaze]

guys, just wondering: does "burn in" have to be continuous? ie. when you all say 100h for eg., does it have to be an unbroken 100h of play? (with the burn-in material that is)

 

[austonia]

one question, if headphones sound so much better after they've been burned in for 40 - 100 hours, why don't they do this at the factory?! sheesh, you shell out $100 - 300 for phones, you think they would sound good out of the box!

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally posted by ablaze guys, just wondering: does "burn in" have to be continuous? ie. when you all say 100h for eg., does it have to be an unbroken 100h of play?

Possibly that makes a difference – but it's hard to say if in one or the other direction. It could well be that 100 hours with several one-hour interruptions do a better job than 100 continuous hours. But the question is academic. Just burn in how you like it and have a listen every now and then, if you're curious! Bass-heavy signals at very high volumes (as loud as you dare...) are helpful.

 

[ablaze]

now that we're on the topic. what kind of burn in is best? i know BASS. but is something with drums better for eg. or something that just plays the bass tones?

oh. what happens if you play too loud. beyond when its actually hurting to put the phones on

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally posted by ablaze now that we're on the topic. what kind of burn in is best? i know BASS. but is something with drums better for eg. or something that just plays the bass tones?

From my imagination I would say it doesn't matter. The main thing is the loosening of the driver. And given the goal is to achieve as much voice coil travel as possible without mechanical overload, theoretically continuous sine waves are better; otherwise you also have to consider the electrical (temperature) charge, which in turn rather favors pulse signals...

Quote:

oh. what happens if you play too loud. beyond when its actually hurting to put the phones on

Just don't wear your headphones during burn-in! And take care that the signal is clean, not distorted. Then nothing bad will happen. Save if the volume effectively is too high: then the drivers will end up in smoke...

But that never happened to me until now.

JaZZ

 

[bangraman]

Something I've never considered before, but I wonder if it's worth mixing something custom? I can throw in some multilayered low sine waves, some stepped mid sounds, and some cymbal loops plus some near-ultrasonic components thrown in?

 

[Calanctus]

bangraman, mixing something custom sounds like a good idea. You could combine sine waves and pink noise. Here's what Burmester (hi end German speaker manufacturer) does to burn in their drivers:
Quote:

The drivers received from the supplier are then burned in for two weeks, using a 10Hz continuous sinewave for midrange units (at 110W) and woofers (at 250W), and a 7W continuous pink-noise signal for the ribbon tweeters.

That's from Stereophile's review of one of their Speakers. (The whole review is here.)

If you do mix something up, maybe you could make it an mp3 and post it somewhere for others to download....

 

[JaZZ]

Note that pink noise is only used for the ribbons! The reason may be: ribbons don't bear up excessive excursions – they would lose their tension. To improve their elasicity, the partial vibrations provoked by pink noise seem to be ideal.

For midrange transducers and woofers – which are designed to move more or less piston-like –, the idea of burn-in just consists of the loosening of their suspension, thus low frequencies, which provide long membrane excursions. I think there's no further mystery hidden in the burn-in process of loudspeakers, and no need for a variety of signals or the presence of high frequencies. And I guess it's fairly the same with headphone drivers. Or maybe it isn't? Well, headphone membranes have a certain elasticity to enable partial vibrations... but those aren't necessarily dependent on mid or high frequencies.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally posted by Calanctus bangraman, mixing something custom sounds like a good idea. You could combine sine waves and pink noise. Here's what Burmester (hi end German speaker manufacturer) does to burn in their drivers: That's from Stereophile's review of one of their Speakers. (The whole review is here.) If you do mix something up, maybe you could make it an mp3 and post it somewhere for others to download....

Man, am I the only person who thinks that someone who wrote that article is smoking something quite potent??? A midrange speaker driven at 10Hz, using 110 watts of power for two straight weeks!!!! I am not saying it's not possible, but it would definitely be quite unbelievable!! 15" sub, sure. 12" sub, sure. 8" sub, pushing it. Midrange driver - don't believe it one bit! The thought of that thing being pushed by over 100w of power at that frequency would blow that thing apart.

 

[williamgoody]

To burn in my 600's I used a house mix by Danny Tenaglia. Lots of highs and lows to stretch out the drivers and bring out the bass a little. 50 hours through a Meta. Seems to have done the trick.

 

[Calanctus]

Quote:

Originally posted by ServinginEcuador Man, am I the only person who thinks that someone who wrote that article is smoking something quite potent??? A midrange speaker driven at 10Hz, using 110 watts of power for two straight weeks!!!! I am not saying it's not possible, but it would definitely be quite unbelievable!! 15" sub, sure. 12" sub, sure. 8" sub, pushing it. Midrange driver - don't believe it one bit! The thought of that thing being pushed by over 100w of power at that frequency would blow that thing apart.

Maybe they are using a lower frequency for longer driver excursion? Or maybe the reviewer misunderstood what Burmester actually does.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally posted by Calanctus Maybe they are using a lower frequency for longer driver excursion? Or maybe the reviewer misunderstood what Burmester actually does.

I hope so as it would be down right unscrupulous or wrong to make a statement like that!! The cone excursion at 10Hz is increbdibly large, probably at least 3-4"!!! I owned some 15" JL Audio dual voice-coil subs, and when a Bach recording hit a note of a mere 18Hz, those speakers were jumping out of their skins to produce it!! They were moving some 1.5-2" total travel to do that, so a note of 10Hz would be nearly 4 times that amount of travel!!! If this thing can do that with its midrange speakers, this would have to have an incredible amount of bass coming from it!!! That's for sure!!!